SAA Integration Architecture 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which integration security mechanism should be used when an external application needs to call Salesforce APIs on behalf of a user without storing the user's credentials?
- Basic Authentication
- OAuth 2.0 JWT Bearer Token Flow (Correct answer)
- Session ID passed in headers
- IP Whitelisting only
Correct answer: OAuth 2.0 JWT Bearer Token Flow
The OAuth 2.0 JWT Bearer Token Flow allows server-to-server integrations to obtain access tokens without user interaction or credential storage.
Question 2: When an external system sends data to Salesforce via REST API and Salesforce is temporarily unavailable, which pattern best handles the reliability requirement?
- Retry immediately in a tight loop
- Store-and-Forward with a durable message queue (Correct answer)
- Switch to SOAP API as fallback
- Cache data in browser local storage
Correct answer: Store-and-Forward with a durable message queue
Store-and-Forward queues messages durably so they are not lost during outages, and delivers them when Salesforce becomes available again.
Question 3: An architect needs to design an integration where Salesforce Platform Events are consumed by an external Java application. Which protocol should the Java app use to subscribe?
- REST long polling
- CometD (Bayeux protocol) (Correct answer)
- SOAP subscriptions
- GraphQL subscriptions
Correct answer: CometD (Bayeux protocol)
Salesforce's Streaming API uses the CometD implementation of the Bayeux protocol, which external clients must use to subscribe to Platform Events and other streaming channels.
Question 4: A Salesforce integration requires calling an external REST endpoint that occasionally takes 30 seconds to respond. What Apex consideration is most important?
- Async callouts via Queueable Apex or Continuation (Correct answer)
- Increasing the heap size limit
- Using Future methods with @future(callout=true)
- Implementing Platform Cache for responses
Correct answer: Async callouts via Queueable Apex or Continuation
Long-running callouts should use asynchronous mechanisms like Queueable Apex or the Continuation class (for VF/LWC) to avoid blocking synchronous Apex execution limits.
Question 5: Which Salesforce API should an architect choose when an external system needs to upsert 500,000 Account records with minimal API call overhead?
- REST API with individual record calls
- SOAP API with batches of 200
- Bulk API 2.0 (Correct answer)
- Composite API
Correct answer: Bulk API 2.0
Bulk API 2.0 is designed for large-scale data operations, processing millions of records asynchronously with optimized throughput and minimal API call consumption.
Question 6: In a hub-and-spoke integration topology, what is the primary role of the central hub?
- Store all business data for connected spokes
- Mediate, transform, and route messages between spokes (Correct answer)
- Authenticate users across all spoke systems
- Replace all spoke systems with a single platform
Correct answer: Mediate, transform, and route messages between spokes
The hub in a hub-and-spoke model acts as a central broker that handles message transformation, routing, and orchestration between the various spoke systems.
Question 7: Which Salesforce feature allows an architect to declaratively call an external REST API and map the response to Salesforce actions without writing Apex code?
- Apex REST Callouts
- External Services (OpenAPI) (Correct answer)
- Named Credentials only
- Workflow Outbound Messages
Correct answer: External Services (OpenAPI)
External Services allow administrators to import an OpenAPI specification and then use the external API's operations as invocable actions in Flow or Process Builder without Apex.
SAA Integration Architecture 3
Which integration security mechanism should be used when an external application needs to call Salesforce APIs on behalf of a user without storing the user's credentials?